Pros:

Cons:

It's been an interesting experience watching the evolution of the new Sam & Max adventures. After being dormant for many years, the dog detective and psycho-rabbit sidekick have staged a brilliant comeback in an episodic series of games that I now look forward to the way I look forward to the next episode of Heroes (and used to look forward to Lost). It's not that there haven't been growing pains. Episode 1 was amusing but uneven. Episode 2 was sharper, but aimed for low-hanging comedic fruit with jabs at Oprah and American Idol. Episode 3 had a great script but skimped on the game's length and adventure elements. Fortunately, it seems the Telltale Games team has been listening to the feedback from the first three episodes and graced us with Episode 4 -- Abe Lincoln Must Die!, easily the best entry in the series to date.

This time around our Freelance Police venture into the hideous, most terrifying hellhole imaginable -- the stinking quagmire that is American politics. It seems that the American President has begun to act in a most unusual fashion. He's going on television and urging his fellow Americans to live life to the fullest and keep joy in their hearts. In order to facilitate this, he's sending a bill to Congress ordering things like mandatory group hugs once a day. Naturally, this simply cannot be allowed, so the ever-unseen Commissioner calls on Sam and Max to head to the White House and find out what's happening to our Commander-in-Chief.

What follows is great political satire. The Freelance Police discover that the President is no more than a puppet for a shadowy secret cabal. Taking him out doesn't solve the problem, though. The same cabal responds by running a 20-foot tall animated statue of Abraham Lincoln in his place. As a result, the duo must do the unthinkable -- figure out how get Max elected President. Yup, American politics has finally reached the point where a hyper-violent rabbit with a gun fetish who promises to nuke the Antarctic is a more attractive candidate than anyone running in the real world.

The difference between Abe Lincoln Must Die! and the previous installments is how subtle the satire is when so much of Sam and Max's world is over-the-top. Sure, there are some obvious bipartisan shots. The puppet President is a George W. Bush parody, and Bill Clinton gets his share of smacks. The real targets of Abe Lincoln Must Die! aren't Republicans or Democrats, though; it's the electoral system. Casting a giant robotic Abe Lincoln as the villainous candidate is a stroke of genius. Robo-Abe is literally an empty suit, an American idol controlled by handlers who spouts endless empty platitudes for the benefit of a celebrity-soaked culture more interested in creating instant heroes and then tearing them down than in the important issues elections are supposed to address.